Reunions
by La La Zeynep
Summary: Set 17 years after the events of Half Life 2: Episode 2 and the Combine forces have fallen except for a few protests here and there. Voiced!Gordon reunites with his daughter after 7 months of "stasis". Oneshot. Reviews appreciated!


Reunions

It was 17th anniversary of humanity's intergalactic War. Or rather it would have been, if there was a war to speak of.

With the rebellion against the imperialstic regimen of the Combine, the war for humanity's freedom had been won before it even begun. Which was good, because if there was a war, a war as we know it with armies and super weapons, entire species climbing onto each other, scratching each other's backs in desperation, coughing out the blood of fallen families and soldiers, maybe there wouldn't be anyone left to fight for. Humanity had won not because of it's armies or technology, which remains questionable to this day, but thanks to timing. Good timing, that pulled the rug from under their feet. A whole empire falling to the ground after decades or maybe even centuries of preparation of something greater than itself, not paying attention to seemingly small but unknowingly dire details, like time. That was their mistake.

Time.. The right move... No: the right _man_ in the wrong place, could make all the difference in the world.

She heard that sentence two days ago for the first time, while she slept.

SUBJECT:

Abigail

Female, age 19

EDUCATION: [Not specified]

POSITION: [Not specified]

ASSIGNMENT: (subject shows aggressive behaviour with foul language. Terminate employment once subject is stablilzed, then contact staff immediately Note: not necessarily in that order)

Another morning, another randomized "facility" for Abby to train in. On each day of training, the section shifts, projecting holograms to fit the pre-made rooms in the central computer's arsenal if the material at hand isn't enough and presents the subject a different environment, different scenarios each time. Assuring it's awareness of it's surroundings is at it's maximum. But this particular one seemed familiar. Not the same, not as primitive compared to what they had in training facilities now, but close. Not in a way that's advantagous for her unfortunately, but she remembers throwing a glance at a view like this once. Maybe on a newspaper, or a magazine. Newspaper is more likely. And it's been very nosy so far.

Scowling at the taunts of the computer implanted into a grey wall, Abby shuffled to the center of the room, her dark hair in a loose bun, her feet bare with her small toes smushed together in an attempt to keep themselves warm and safe, from the metal beneath her. She was still in her pajamas as she was rushed here by one of the robots. They never were the ones to offer a slipper.

She cleared her throat and nudged her glasses back to the top of her nose and pressed the button conveniently placed in front of her. Instead of a hologram like she was expecting, the left wall was folded in half and a third wall dragged a lifeless grey robot into the room before retreating to where it came, it's head, similar to D0G's, was drooping, looking down like it was aware of it's lifeless body with it's back hunched. Before it came to life with a mechanical whirl Abby always felt like it was filled with delight and stood up to reveal it's true shape.

It did look like D0G a little, she noted. Although smaller, more humanlike, modern, it's big green iris moving restlessly, and much colder looking. Abby saw a bit of Aperture in it. She wondered if it could talk.

"Hello and welcome to the Black Mesa Hazard Course," a woman' voice chimed, "where you'll be trained in the Hazardous Environment Suit. I am your [ **ROBOTIC]** assistant."

Abby chortled unapologetically when she heard the lady robot say "robotic" in a deep artificially generated voice, like those old school translators.

"Let's begin by stepping into your suit. You can see it suspended up ahead of you."

There was some whirling, and in the room ahead of her stood a black suit lined subtly with red. She sighed in relief when she saw it was the HEV suit she was thinking of. This one looked much more appealing, the insides much more elastic, conviniently shaped to fit an average frame. This new HEV suit that physicists, chemists, engineers and biologists of all branches, including her and her father, worked on to give the wearer a helpful and comfortable experience, without the cons of the previous HEV suits. It was supposed to have a voice too but her father had insisted that he didn't want to hear one word from any kind of suit ever again, so they scratched the idea. And thank heavens they did.

She tiptoed her way to the second area which was left plain for her to get used to the suit and move freely around the room. She didn't attempt to act like it was truly her first time wearing an HEV suit, as she had sneaked into many labs to give the suits a try. And, bless their hearts, the scientists never acted like they weren't shocked to find broken objects in the radius of the suit, even when they knew it was her.

"Moving around in your HEV suit may be slightly disorienting-.." the voice slowed and trailed off, catching Abby off guard. The robot's head was drooped again like it was out of power, but these new robots overthrew the older electrical ones ages ago and they surely wouldn't be using one of those.

Then the robot woke up with a stranger mechanical whirl and straightened up, looking around curiously. It's posture was different, it's painfully arched back was hunched a little, it's movements were stiffer and the eye's movements became less erratic. When it spotted Abby, it's pupil dilated and the lower lid rose a little, almost like the machine was mimicking a smile.

"Abby.." the voice was male. A little on the deeper side but soothing and calm with a hint of joy in it's usually neutral tone. Her eyes widened as she heard her father's voice.

"Dad? I.." The robot tilted it's head affectionately and waited for her to finish.

"I... You... I thought you were..." Abby's stiff hands moved side to side with each pause, her expression clearly showing her shock and her anger, but also her sheer delight, "These trips... _I..._ So you've come to see me, uh, inside a /robot/?" she quickly blurted out to drive her tears away with the obnoxiousity of her words. He laughed.

"You know the training facility allows only one person at a time." he said softly. "And I didn't want to intervene with your training. But I had to see you, so I took control of the robot."

Abby nodded wordlessly.

There was a pause. A pause which seemed like months to her father. Especially to her father. It's been 7 months.

Abby's walk turned into a sprint in a blink of time and she jumped up to hug her dad, forgetting that she was.. practically hugging a robot. It was terribly cold, but she longed for a hug. Missed him so much that she didn't care.

They held each other for a few seconds, whispering I missed you's, before letting go. Abby had turned red by the time she stood to beam at the robot's emerald eye, not really because she was crying, but because he was squeezing her too much. She didn't say anything though.

The robot's eye wasn't capable of showing many emotions, not without an assigned personality, but she could hear them in his voice.

"I hope I didn't miss much." he muttered, a sign of him getting emotional which not many people had seen, before noticing her new HEV suit. He cleared his throat.

"I see you've given the new suit a go.", he mused. "Most of our team had worked on it and I see it works really well. Though this is one of the earlier models. It will require a couple more tests to get the best results before we present it to public, but I'm already quite proud of it. You should be too." He nudged her arm and the robot's upper lid rose as if he was attempting to raise it's eyebrows. Abby laughed.

"I only helped with the interior's smaller details, you know."

"The interior is what's most important." he stated, standing a bit straighter. "Even though you're only 2 years into your college education, you've risen in your areas more than most people of your age could in a decade. We're all proud to have you working with us and we appreciate your help, but no one could be prouder than me and your mother." he nodded slowly. Abby could feel his smile. She scoffed jokingly.

"Well /I/ don't have a /PhD/ from theoretical physics from /MIT/, but I appreciate it."

The robot rattled a little to the back as he threw his head back and laughed. When he had calmed down he looked back at Abby, saw her huge cheeky grin and laughed again.

"Weren't you supposed to be training, young lady?"

She grinned and shrugged nonchalantly. "I can wait."

"Hm." he tapped his feet. "What do you say I accompany you as you train? I'll meet you back upstairs when you're done. And you can fill me in on what happened."

Abby grinned. "Sounds good. Didn't you go to the headquarters first and learn everything there? You probably know much more than /me/!"

He paused for a second, then shrugged.

"I'd like to hear them from you too, if that's okay."

Of course, she didn't object to that.

They went on together, Abby telling him about the successfully muffled resistance movements of Combine sympathisants, new projects assigned to her in college and how thrilled she was to try the new equipment, how the weather has been, the strange things she saw in her dreams and her first time seeing snow, as she ducked and jumped and ran into a pipe every once in a while as her father listened with enthusiasm. His hands gathered behind his back, moving slowly with her, joking knowingly once when Abby comments about how confusing teleportation was for her and tilting his head with an unseen smile as she laughed.

Stopping listening only once when she mentions her dreams and her comments about time, starting with that one phrase, like she was reading them from a paper given to her monotonously, planted inside her head. The Free Man stood there, shocked, as his daughter uttered those cryptical words he was so familiar with. Hearing them from her, his /daughter/, was like a knife through his chest. He asked her if she was okay, trying not to seem worried, but Abby read right through him even without a face to read from and rushed to his side, holding his arm, assuring over and over that she was okay and she felt a little blank for a second, probably due to her constant running. He nodded, more to himself than to her, feeling a bit better. He applauded as best as he could when Abby finished her training with nothing more than a bruise and waved as she exited the facility, then the robot drooped his head over his body again as Gordon stepped away, taking off the apparatus he was wearing, looking weary. This was never going to end, was it? This business with.. "G-Man", watching over him, suspending him in time as he saw fit, as Gordon hoped that it wouldn't be as long as last time, it wouldn't be drastic as last time and this wouldn't be the last he saw his family, his city and his daughter. This time.. This was going too far. From the beginning he knew how this would end. But he was human. And he had a responsibility now, people who look up to him as the savior of mankind, his family. Kleiner, Barney, Alyx, Abby. Eli...

He was not going to let them touch any of them ever again. He didn't know how, but this time he had a plan. He just wishes he has enough.. time.


End file.
